New exhibit area: “How much livestock is too much?”
The new exhibit area expands the theme of zoonotic diseases to include farm animals such as cattle, chicken and pigs, as well as the presentation of eight selected viruses and bacteria and how we have dealt with them over the years or even millennia. © LIB, M. Gerisch
Friend or foe? Food source or virus slinger? A new exhibition area at the Museum der Natur Hamburg shows how closely our human health depends on our interaction with farm animals. The newly designed presentation with animal preparations, media station and exciting information on the spread of infectious diseases will open on World Zoonoses Day on July 6.
When pathogens of infectious diseases jump from animals to us humans, we have often gone too far: too far in the land use of nature, too far in the handling of wild animals, too far in the industrial production of meat. By keeping too many animals in too small a space and depriving wildlife of their habitat, we increase the risk of zoonotic diseases. With factory farming, we create ideal conditions for the spread of epidemics. If a pathogen enters a barn with genetically similar animals, it can spread quickly.
The prelude to the topic of zoonoses had already been created by the Museum of Nature Hamburg in the first year of the Corona Crisis with the presentation of the area “The Revenge of the Pangolin”. Here, the focus is on the role of wild animals such as pangolins (pangolins) and larval rollers within the chain of infection of diseases such as Covid-19 and Spanish flu.
The new exhibit area expands the theme of zoonotic diseases to include farm animals such as cattle, chicken and pigs, as well as the introduction of eight selected viruses and bacteria and how we have dealt with them over the years or even millennia. At a media station, we can explore when and how diseases such as measles, anthrax, plague, Ebola or Covid-19 spread, what danger they pose, how science has investigated the causes of the diseases and what measures are used to combat them.
The new presentation spans the narrative from the Stone Age to the present day, from the spread of various infectious diseases to efforts to prevent epidemics in advance. We learn how to protect ourselves and how our lifestyles can help limit infectious diseases.
To promote animal and human health, it becomes clear, we must protect the diversity of species and habitats. Accordingly, nature and animal protection are also health protection. In the spirit of a “one health approach” that considers the three areas together, researchers and authorities worldwide are increasingly working together to combat infectious diseases and prevent pandemics.
Zoonotic diseases have been with us since we began hunting animals and processing them for food. When our ancestors became sedentary, the risk of pathogen transmission increased with the keeping of domestic animals – and it continues to rise: while the world’s population has more than doubled since the early 1960s, meat production has actually increased fivefold.
